HHN 27: The Shining

Jumping back into this thread to see if anyone's heard rumblings on the facade to this house. Any chance they're actually doing a facade of the hotel itself? Or should we expect something more along the lines of 2013 Evil Dead or Halloween 2 last year, with the minimalist approach that leads right into the maze?

I kinda figured it might be something along those lines. Not that it isn't iconic on its own, and probably a lot easier to pull off within budget. I'm excited to see how it all comes together. At this point I'm hoping it's at least on par with Exorcist.

I'd assume so, based on what Hollywood is doing (and the movie). I honestly didn't ask a lot about this house because I kinda knew what to suspect.

And in regards to It next year. I was told that Stephen King is not happy, at all, that this house is happening. To we're he tried to stop it after it was leaked (remember that? And how it still took a month to announce it after it was leaked? I think it was King himself causing that.)

Universal found a loophole to get The Shining. The loophole existed because King gave all the rights to WB. There's a lot of variables that have to be maneuvered for It to show.

Maybe we enter the hedge maze without the snow and then have a transition hallway into the hotel where it kind of becomes abstract like The Exorcist and then in the maze finale it's all covered in snow or during the blizzard.

In one of the first rooms, there is the typewriter on the wall and the scattered pages with "All work and no play make Jack a dull boy". If you know the movie, you know what's on those pages. Is it me, or for the second week did they replace some of the normal-font pages with new pages with larger font so you can read the contents from afar?

The Shining seems to rank either really high or really low on most people's lists. I think this is possibly due to a split between those who are fans of the movie and those that are not. I guess some big fans of the film may feel like the tone of the movie has been lost in translation and I can definitely understand that point of view. But, for me, they tell the story of the film while also boosting the scare factor a bit to help it fit into a haunted attraction environment. I prefer this take on the film versus had they kept the scares to a minimum and made if feel more like you were visiting a (scary) museum exhibit about the film.

This is my overall favorite house this year. Is it the scariest? Nope. Does it have the best actors at the event? Probably not. Are the Jack prosthetic forehead pieces atrocious? Yep. Does the Nicholson voice-over actor sound anything like Nicholson? Not really. (Speaking of this, does Nicholson own the rights to his character or something? Why couldn't they use the audio straight from the film? Am I wrong? Is that really Nicholson's voice?) Is the finale very repetitive and missing 'something' ? Indeed. Is the queue setup absolutely ridiculous and unnecessary? Yup. So, why does it rank #1 for me?

While not as scary as say Blumhouse, this house still packs a punch. It's fun to be able to interact within the environment of one of my all-time favorite films. Specifically, I want to give credit to a few of the actors. I've got to give a shout-out to the first Wendy (on Cast A, I believe) who looks an awful lot like Shelley Duvall. She has very good timing and portrays her fear perfectly with her wide-eyed look. I appreciate seeing the first Jacks in the lobby, by Dick Halloran's body, dragging their injured leg through the scene. My favorite room in the house is the Gold Room. I really like how they interpreted this part of the movie. Both casts' Lloyds do a good job of pulling you in and distracting you from the coming scares. Other favorite parts: Grady, the Grady twins, the show scene with Jack and Wendy and the door, and the mirrored hallway with the Bear and the 'great party, isn't it?' guest. If it didn't add about 500 steps and 10 minutes to my night, I would visit this house much more often.

As I mentioned in the main review thread, I don't feel like there's one "amazing" house this year, but had the complaints I made up above been 'corrected' (see what I did there?) I think this house would come closest to being that "amazing" house.

^Since you think this is the strongest year for houses since ‘09 (better than ‘11 even, woah), wouldn’t it be a downer if none of them are amazing (though I thought that Scarecrow was)?

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I think that when looked at as a complete lineup of 9 houses - that together, they are slightly stronger than the 8 houses from 2011. Not to get too far off topic, but quickly - my rankings of the houses from 27 and 21:

^I actually averaged your rankings just to make sure. Sure enough the average ranking there for the houses of 27 (8.67) was just slightly higher than 21 (9.375). I saw earlier in the rankings thread where you listed 21 as the third best year for houses out of the twelve years you attended, which makes this your third favorite out of the fourteen.

Yeah, for houses this is my 3rd favorite year. There have definitely been years with 1-3 better houses, but those years also included some stinkers. And as I said in the main review thread, I'm not sure if I prefer the balance of a bunch of good houses (like 27) or if I prefer a year with 1 to 3 standout houses (like 23 or 18.)

As far as the overall event, 27 wouldn't rank in my top five years because of how poor the scarezones and shows are this year, imo. I respect others who are enjoying the zones/shows this year, it's just how I personally feel.

Anyway, to get things back on track, has anyone else noticed the bad Jack voice-overs? Am I crazy?

It was really cool today. We went into AHS, and when we got out it was just pouring down! So we decided to wait it out a bit, and see what we could do. We ended up hitting up the Shining as well before heading out for the night.

Since it had just poured down rain, and also, they still had a regular day guest in the park at 6:30! So they couldn't let anyone from the front gates in, until they finished their security sweep. Just the people who were doing the stay in scream were in the park!

But since all of this went down the way it did, my father and I got a full walk through of The Shining by ourselves! It was fantastic, and we got every single scare in the house. It was a such a super rare occurrence, that it was super cool, but also weird to not have people in front nor back of you in an HHN house. Now I have been to plenty of other haunts where I have gotten this experience, but this was a first for HHN!

So I just wanted to share, it was an amazing experience. Add that to the fact that we got to see the final showing of T2, it was a pretty sick day! I could not have asked for anything else!

Could they have done better? Yes. Namely should’ve been colder and the rooms should’ve been a bit bigger. Thanks AHS...

But, a good maze, even if not great. The Shelly Duvals were spot on, they made sure to feature a ton of that awesome carpet design, the sets were still eye-pleasing to this major fan of the film, the Room 237 ladies were truly scary, the gold room was very creatively done, I was pleased to see them devote some space to the blood elevator (it was screen based but in a more creative way than I would’ve expected) and there was something so satisfying about the entrance with the theme music blasting. I’m thankful they finally gave this IP a try.